Skin Deep
by Just An Inkling
Summary: It's Seto's job to help put everything back together again. That is, when Mokuba lets him help. Rated for cutting and emotional drama.


Nostalgia fest, anyone? I used to watch Yu-Gi-Oh! back in the fourth grade when I got ready for school. You know, the original, that actually had Yugi in it? I hate the new versions - 5D, especially. I'm a purist, bite me.

But anyway, I was watching episodes I haven't seen in forever last night, and I noticed how Mokuba is _always_ wearing long sleeves. And given my history, I took that small, insignificant fact and made a mountain out of a... well. This doesn't qualify for mountainhood, probably, but you know what I mean.

This is partially based off of my own experiences - I had a very good, older friend of mine help me out of a cutting addiction - but mostly, this is just an interpretation of the _what if_ factor surrounding the Kaiba brothers' relationship. It's a veritable minefield of possibilities.

**Warnings:** Um. Don't read if you're sensitive to emotional trauma? Idk. It's pretty low-key, as the rating suggests. Mostly after the fact.

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><p><strong>Skin Deep<strong>

If Seto really thought about it, he'd realize that he should have seen this coming.

Every few days, a new cut, a new Band-Aid would appear, sometimes on his wrist, sometimes closer to his elbow. Mokuba always had an answer: "Don't worry about it, Niisama, I'm just clumsy. It's only a paper cut. I'm fine." Eventually, convinced that Mokuba wasn't in any real danger, Seto committed the unforgivable sin: He stopped asking.

Or, more accurately, he stopped seeing. The Band-Aids, the injuries themselves had become so common place that they were invisible. And, if he noticed, he would have seen the Band-Aids upgraded to gauze pads and medical tape, and then to cloth bandage rolls to be washed and reused until worn to bare threads. He would have seen the long sleeve shirts become ever more frequent in the boy's wardrobe, and he would have seen the stiffness in his brother's arms in the mornings. Mokuba _himself_ never changed—Seto would have noticed _that_—but little things he did changed. His movements were more careful, pained somehow, and he was spending more and more time out of his brother's reach—across the board room, in his own bedroom instead of Seto's office, not as willing to jump up and follow Seto wherever he went. Gradually, always with good reason, and Seto never had the time to get suspicious anyway.

He never suspected anything. This was _Mokuba_, after all—happy, loyal, _loving_ Mokuba. The kid he'd raised from infancy, the kid who, in many ways, raised _him_ to adulthood. Mokuba wasn't depressed or—God in _heaven_ forbid—suicidal.

Cutting wasn't something his baby brother would_ ever_ do. It would never happen. He had no reason to be scared.

If Seto really thought about it, he would have had every reason to be scared.

-x-x-x-

The computers were blowing up.

Mokuba was one of six people in the world of the living who knew how to fix Kaiba-Corp's system mainframe, and so he'd been rushed to the bowels of the building the second he'd stepped through the front door. He'd been swept into the network room, a cavernous basement space full of gargantuan machines, and left with an insufficient explanation of the virus eating the mainframe and a plea to fix it _soon_.

Thoughtlessly, he pushed up his sleeves, rolled the pressure bandage he'd put on his wrist for camouflage into a neat little roll, and set to work.

Six hours later, Seto Kaiba ventured down to check on his brother and the programmers' progress with combating the virus. He strolled up to Mokuba's side and smiled at the distracted grunt he got in greeting. His brother was in his element, and he had about a snowball's chance in hell of distracting him. Briefly, he prayed that Mokuba didn't wind up the workaholic he was.

The boy was staring at a seemingly nonsensical collection of numbers and letters on the computer screen, eyes moving from one section of code to the next with an uncommonly practiced eye. Seto studied his brother for a moment more before his eyes travelled to the small fingers tripping nimbly over the keyboard.

His forearms were totally exposed for the first time in months, which surprised him mildly to begin with. He glimpsed a group of raised ridges illuminated by the glow of the computer screen. Alarm bells started going off in his head—although he personally had never experienced the need to cut, he had known many who had over the years, and the implications he had seen were something he _never_ wanted his baby brother to go through.

_Don't jump to conclusions, _he told himself, taking a deep breath and forcing down the rising fear and apprehension in his throat. Wordlessly, he moved over to one of the other programmers, a thirty something wholly focused on his own screen. "Mister Kent," he muttered, touching the programmer on the shoulder.

The man tapped his keyboard, pausing the flow of cyber-DNA across his screen. "Mister Kaiba," he said, looking up with a conspicuous lack of fear. "Can I help you?"

"I need to speak with Mokuba for a minute. Do you need him especially right now?"

Mr. Kent glanced over at his young partner. "Yeah, sure, I can spare him. He's been here six hours without a break, why don't you just take the kid home, anyway? Get him some sunlight," the man chuckled. "Don't want the kid to end up like me, do we?"

"Yeah, well. Ah, thank you, Mister Kent." Seto awkwardly patted his shoulder and returned to Mokuba's side. "Mokuba, come on."

"What? I'm not—"

"Go with your brother," the other programmer said from across the room, not looking up from his screen. "Get food, get sunlight, get sleep. Back-up's on the way, I can hold out here until they get here."

"O-okay," Mokuba sighed shakily, standing up and stretching his arms mightily over his head to uncoil the kinks in his spine. "See you, Brendon."

"Later, Moku. Take care."

The Kaiba brothers walked out into the hallway, letting the door close behind them. "Mokuba," Seto said quietly, struggling with how to shape his fears into words. "We…need to talk."

"Mmm?" Mokuba blinked owlishly up at his brother. In his exhaustion, he'd forgotten that his sleeves were rolled up and the pressure bandage was tucked neatly in his pocket, that his every scar was revealed for the world to see.

Seto knelt in front of his brother and closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath to steady himself. When he opened his eyes again, they were brimming with something Mokuba had never seen before in his Niisama's eyes—uncloaked fear. "Mokuba, you know you can come to me with anything, right," he asked, his voice soft and quivering ever so slightly.

Mokuba's mind raced through all the possibilities of what Seto could be getting at, never once touching on the closest issue to home he had—his own arms. "Seto?"

"I love you," Seto continued insistently, brushing Mokuba's hair behind his ear. "I know…it doesn't always seem like it, but you're the best thing I have in my life. I don't think I could…survive without you."

"Seto, what are you saying? You're…kinda scaring me here."

Thin, pianist fingers found Mokuba's wrist, and as Seto's cool skin touched his, Mokuba knew that he was in serious trouble. Eyes wide, he pulled back, hurriedly tugging at his sleeves to conceal the damage, trying to reverse the hurt and fear in his brother's eyes. "Brother—Niisama— I'm sorry! I didn't mean—You weren't supposed to—"

Seto's eyes softened sadly, and before Mokuba really knew what was happening, he was leaning on Seto's shoulder, his brother's fingers entangled in his hair with gentle desperation. "Mokuba," he murmured against his little brother's shoulder, "please, _please_ don't apologize to me. Not for this. Please. If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me."

"What-? No, you shouldn't. I'm the one who—who—" He couldn't bring himself to say it. His brother was already hurt because of him, he couldn't bear to see it made worse.

"But I didn't see it," Seto said, pulling back just enough to look his brother in the eye. "If I hadn't been so blind…maybe I would have been able to help…"

Mokuba blinked, tears welling up at the spent hopelessness in his brother's voice. "Brother," he murmured sadly, winding his arms around his brother's neck. "It's… I just…wanted you to be proud of me… And then I… It was so _hard_, and… I've just hurt you again."

Seto held Mokuba as tightly as he could without hurting him. "Mokie, I am _always_ proud of you," he whispered fervently. "You don't even have to try, you make me proud just by being _you_."

And all at once, every hopeless ambition Mokuba had of living up to the expectations his brother _ought_ to have was gone, replaced by the all-encompassing feeling of being _held_ for the first time in a long time, of being loved just as he was, scarred and bruised and needy and exhausted. All he could think about was Seto's arms around him and Seto's fingers through his hair, and Seto _not caring about his scars._ He didn't know when he started crying, but Seto's fingers were suddenly against his face and whispers of "Shh, don't cry, baby brother, it's alright," were swirling through his ears, like cool water in the middle of the Sahara.

"I…I…I don't know how to stop," Mokuba sobbed, heedless of the click of heels down the corridor, or the look Seto shot his office assistant when she saw them. "I tried, and I tried again, and I tried again, and I—I can't make myself stop it!"

"Shh, shh, it's okay, Mokie," Seto soothed, his heart laying in shards around his knees. "That's what Big Brother's here for, okay? To help you fix things. That's my job. I'll help put you back together again, I promise."

Mokuba clung to Seto's jacket, fingers clutching desperately at the fabric like Seto would rescind his promise if he ever let go.

"…Do you want to go home?"

Wordlessly, Mokuba nodded. He was spent, physically and emotionally, and all he wanted in the world was to curl up on the couch under that one _really warm_ fleece blanket and go to sleep for a thousand years. Or maybe a month or two. Because Seto would miss him if he was gone for a thousand years. He took a deep breath and wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve, suddenly unable to stay upright without Seto's support. His arms latched around Seto's neck and he snuggled into his brother's side, silently demanding to be carried out to the car.

Seto chuckled and lifted Mokuba in his arms, relieved to have his brother this close to him. As long as Mokuba was with him, nothing would happen.

He wouldn't let anything happen. Whatever nonexistent god as his witness, he would not let anything happen to Mokuba ever again.

Even if the enemy in question was Mokuba himself.

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><p>So, um. Yeah. There you go.<p>

Review, maybe?


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